


Luck of the Irish (and Jewish)

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Bill Beckett thinks he's the world's greatest matchmaker, M/M, St. Patrick's Day, a terrible joke with no punchline, and he may not be wrong, stupid things boys do when they're high
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4516017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a St Patrick's Day challenge in 2007. Joe's friends are jerks (with good intentions, mostly), Patrick is DEFINITELY NOT a leprechaun, and they're never going to come up with a punchline for this stupid joke but that's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luck of the Irish (and Jewish)

"Happy Saint Patrick's Day," Travis had chirped just after midnight, "come get your green on with us, Troh. I found some bud you will not believe." Joe hadn't been planning on going out, but an offer like that he just couldn't refuse-- if Travis said it was unbelievable, then obviously Joe had to smoke it to believe it.

Bill Beckett assaulted him just inside the door, skinny fingers pinching at Joe's sides. "You're not wearing green," he cooed, "So you have to give me a kiss!" His cheeks were red and his hair messy, and it was all Joe could do not to laugh when he pulled Bill down and kissed his cheek.

"Happy? Let me in, I can smell that shit from here." Pushing past Bill's giggly, very drunk body, Joe found Gabe and Travis sprawled on Travie's couch, passing a bright green pipe between them. "New piece?"

"The newest," Gabe agreed, handing it to Joe with a sleepy, stoned grin. "Especially for today."

"I named it Patrick," Travis said, and Joe paused with his lips pursed on the stem, blue eyes blinking wide at the afroed boy. "...for Saint Patrick's Day," Travie added slowly, waiting until Joe started inhaling before he added, "And because it's short." He and Gabe fell into spasms of laughter when Joe choked on the smoke, coughing into the bend of his wrist while his face turned redder and redder.

"That's-- that's not even fucking right," Joe gasped, trying to catch his breath, laughing anyway. "Shit. I should tell him."

"Aw, don't do that. He'd just get upset," Bill protested, coming back into the room with a bottle of Jameson's in one hand and a tiny green top hat perched on his head. He made a prim, drunken little spin and collapsed across Gabe and Travie's laps. "Unless he wants to be passed around between the four of us," he added thoughtfully. Joe shoved the pipe into his free hand and covered his face with one hand.

"No. Bad thought. No. No no no." He stole the whiskey, taking a slug that burned its way into his stomach, adding a bit of fire to the smoke already working through his system. Good shit indeed.

"Not a bad thought," Gabe corrected. Thumb against his lips, he looked at Travis and Bill conspiratorially. "Not a bad thought at all." Travis, though, was staring at Joe, a slow grin spreading across his face.

"Oh, shit. I don't think Troh wants to share with us." He hit the pipe, exhaled a slow, dragonesque plume of smoke in the guitarist's direction. "You got something to share with the class, Joseph?"

"Fuck off," Joe said, but his expression said everything his lips wouldn't. Bill patted his thigh, not making too much of an effort to keep from drunkenly groping while he was there.

"Awww. Does he know? Have you guys-- oh my god! Tell us _everything_ ," he demanded, settling his head on Gabe's leg and looking up at Joe expectantly. "Story time, the tale of the magical pipe named Patrick!"

"I'm going to fucking kill you, Beckett." Joe shook a fist at Bill, not very threateningly. "I haven't-- I _don't_ , I do not have anything to say about Patrick."

"Except that you want to sweep him off his little feet into a world of debauchery and savage lust," Gabe said knowingly, pulling on one of Bill's curls lazily. "Poor innocent Patrick won't know what hit him."

"Don't underestimate," Travis warned, smirking a little. "Patrick's no blushing virgin, man." Joe made a tiny, whiny sound of protest, stealing the pipe again and hitting it hard.

\---

"Patrick?" Bill made a kissy face in the bathroom mirror, phone tucked between ear and shoulder. "I hate to call you this late, but Joe is so trashed he can barely stand. And god knows none of the rest of us can drive tonight." He giggled.

"You're really asking me to pick him up?" Yawning, Patrick held his phone away, squinting at his watch in the darkness of his bunk. "At two thirty in the morning?"

"He's asking for you to," Bill said softly, "Seems like he means it." Patrick closed his eyes, burying half his face back into his pillow.

"Fuck. Okay. I'll-- where are you guys? I'll come get him."

"Travie's place. Oh, Patrick, you're such a sweet guy." Placing an exaggerated kiss on his phone, Bill giggled again. "I can see what he sees in you."

"...what?" By the time Patrick processed that ambiguous statement, there was no one left to hear his confusion. He thought about it while he dragged on a sweatshirt and a hat, tried looking at it a different way while he dialed a taxi company, and by the time he was knocking on Travis's door, still looking sort of groggy and sort of nervous, Patrick knew he simply couldn't keep trying to figure it out until he'd had a cup of coffee.

"Tricky," Travis greeted him when the door swung open; there was a foil garland of shamrocks twined through his 'fro, courtesy of Gabe and Bill and Jameson. "Shhh, baby's sleeping. Don't wanna wake him up." He led Patrick past where Gabe was curled up on the couch, feet dangling over one arm and the empty bottle under his head like a pillow, and into the kitchen.

Joe's arms were crossed on the kitchen table, and his head was buried in the darkness they provided. The back of his hair looked fluffy; Patrick patted it gently. "Hey, Joe. Come on, we gotta get back to the bus."

"Shit," Joe groaned, not moving. "Idunwanna. Too drunk f'ra show." Travis had already slipped away when Patrick turned back to ask for help.

"Joe. No show. I promise. Just bed, okay?" Patrick always had a weird little thing about seeing Joe all fucked up, half protectiveness and half fascination, something about the flush in his cheeks and the width of his pupils turning blue eyes twilight. "Come on," he urged again, softly, and Joe lifted his head and looked up at Patrick like he'd never seen him before.

"Saint Patrick," he said, reaching out for Patrick's arm and missing by a few inches. "You're a leprechaun." He was so trashed it took all of Patrick's weight to keep him upright, and with that comment Patrick wasn't sure if he wanted to.

"Neither, sorry." Neither Travis nor William was anywhere to be seen as the short singer hefted the not-all-that-tall guitarist out of Travie's place and into the back of the waiting cab. Joe immediately cuddled up against Patrick's side, resting his head against Patrick's. "You feeling okay?" Patrick asked warily, not wanting to be the victim of drunken queasiness.

"I'm fiiiiiine," Joe drawled, and-- _did he just **nuzzle** me?_ Patrick thought, correctly. "Hey, hey, I heard this joke..."

"Really." Patrick couldn't help it, Joe was adorable when he was too drunk to sit upright. "What's the joke?"

"Uh, it goes... a leprechaun and a Jew get into a taxicab. And the leprechaun says 'hey, why are you drunk, this is an Irish holiday,' and the Jew says, uh...." He was cut off with a hand covering his mouth.

"Shut up," Patrick said fondly, "You're not telling it right. The leprechaun says 'for fuck's sake, it's three in the morning and we have a show tonight,' and the Jew says 'oops, I'm sorry, thank you for coming to pick me up.'"

"But that's not funny," Joe argued, grabbing a handful of Patrick's sweatshirt sleeve. "Your jokes suck, Trick."

"You're too wasted to tell," Patrick said blithely, or as blithely as he could with Joe drunkenly using his arm as a teddy bear and his shoulder as a pillow. "It'll be funnier in the morning."

"So you say." Joe's tone was ominous. He fell asleep against Patrick's shoulder a few minutes before they made it back to the bus, forcing Patrick to wake him up again, just enough to get him onto a couch. Patrick crawled back into bed after tossing a blanket over Joe's shoulders, not even bothering to take his hat off before he passed back out. Maybe in the morning, things would be less weird.

\---

"Happy Irish Stereotyping Day," Andy greeted Patrick over his breakfast of orange juice and canned pineapple. "How does it feel to embody the most popular symbol of the holiday?"

"A leprechaun," Pete clarified unhelpfully, around the straw of his capri-sun. Patrick flipped him off, but when he reached up to adjust his cap, it was felt and floppy-brimmed-- a cheap green bowler, creased from where it had lain under his head.

"What the fuck...?"

"Hey, Patrick." Joe was leaning on the wall across from the bathroom, looking slightly green in a not-very-festive way, but he was smiling. "So a leprechaun and a Jew walk into a bar...."

"Where's my hat, Trohman?" Patrick shook his fist threateningly at Joe, who smirked and shrugged innocently.

"...what happened?" Pete said, looking between the two of them curiously. "With the leprechaun and the Jew."

"They lived happily ever after," Andy ventured, stabbing a piece of pineapple with his fork and using it to gesture. "Short and Irishly, and uh, kosherly. Ever after."

"That's not very funny," Pete complained, and Patrick pulled the felt hat down more snugly when he walked by Pete to get off the bus.

"That's what he said," he waved a hand back at Joe on his way out. Andy and Pete both gave Joe a curious look; he buried both hands in his curls and yawned.

"Dude, I don't know what the fuck happened. I've been trying to come up with a punchline." He stretched, arms over his head, and then followed Patrick out, smiling to himself.

"Someone really needs to talk to him about all the weed," Andy muttered, going back to the pineapple massacre at hand.

\---

"Patrick, wait up-- seriously, slow down, Trick." Joe could tell when Patrick was angry, and he wasn't, not yet anyhow. Didn't stop him from walking too fast for a man who was barefoot-- and still in his clothes from the night before, a lingering odor of smoke and booze and sweat clinging to the fabric-- to catch up easily. He didn't expect Patrick to whirl around when he did get close, staring up at Joe with something the taller boy couldn't read in those green eyes.

"So the leprechaun says, 'hey, what's the deal with you wanting me to come pick you up at ass o'clock in the morning?'" Patrick said softly, not startled at all when Joe reached for his hand.

"What, you need the Jew to actually come out and say it?" Joe's fingertips were familiarly callused, stroking over Patrick's palm. "I didn't ask for you specifically. But Beckett... you know how he is, he's a fucking madman."

"I know how Bill is," Patrick agreed dryly; he curled his fingers around Joe's, looking up at him expectantly.

"Because I wouldn't want to make any trouble for you," Joe went on after a moment, "And, you know..." He gave Patrick's hand a gentle pull, and the shorter man came willingly into his arms. "Once he finds out you like someone, he won't rest until he's tried to play matchmaker."

"So dragging your intoxicated ass back to the bus was supposed to endear you to me?" Patrick was grinning; it looked like Bill's plan had worked anyway. "I spent most of the ride praying you wouldn't puke."

"You spent most of the ride with me pretending to be asleep on you," Joe corrected. He tipped the felt hat back on Patrick's head, brushing his hair back from his face. "I didn't think I needed to endear you to me."

"Well... yeah." Patrick's eyes looked like new leaves, a hint of spring come early; he closed them when Joe leaned closer, teasing his lips with a hovering not-quite-kiss until Patrick pushed up to take the kiss he wanted.

Someone started applauding behind them, whooping and catcalling. Joe flipped whoever it was off, reluctantly pulling away from Patrick. Gabe Saporta was coming toward them from the bus, smirking. "I just came to make sure you two made it back. Bill's gonna be insufferable when he hears that it worked."

"Tell Bill that we didn't need his help," Patrick said, leaning against Joe comfortably. "We just needed a little luck of the Irish."


End file.
